Communities first line of defence against illegal wildlife trade – IUCN/IIED

IUCN and IIED launch Guidance on Local Communities: First Line of Defence against Illegal Wildlife Trade (FLoD)

Wed, 09 May 2018

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the International Institute for International Development (IIED) are proud to launch the guidance and associated tools to implement the Local Communities: First Line of Defence against Illegal Wildlife Trade (FLoD) methodology. FLoD seeks to better understand the conditions for stronger engagement of local communities to combat illegal wildlife trade.

Combating the surge of illegal wildlife trade (IWT) devastating wildlife populations is an urgent global priority for conservation. The sudden and rapid escalation of IWT on the international agenda has been driven by a drastic increase in poaching of Africa’s iconic elephants and rhinoceroses and concerns for other already endangered taxa such as tigers and pangolins. The crisis has attracted over US$350 million in donor and government funding in recent years, primarily directed at increased enforcement.

The role of local communities in combating illegal wildlife trade is being increasingly recognised as central to effective anti-poaching strategies. While this is enshrined in a number of recent global policy statements and commitments, little guidance is available on how to effectively engage communities in practice.

Emerging lessons from the implementation of FLoD so far demonstrate that while it is essential to engage communities as partners in combating illegal wildlife trade, context is critical as even communities from similar cultural backgrounds have diverse sets of tangible and intangible incentives and costs that influence their behaviour. The FLoD initiative appears to be successful in teasing apart these differences, bringing out community voice, and identifying ways of improving interventions to combat illegal wildlife trade at the community level. This is useful guidance for conservation organizations, policy-makers and donors.

Informed by growing experience in the application of the methodology and lessons learnt from different contexts, implementing partners will continue to update and refine the FLoD process, and simplify it where possible.

The FLoD initiative is supported by the UK Government’s Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund, the U.S. Department of Interior, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in partnership with Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association, Big Life Foundation, Cottars’ Safari Service, Southern Rift Association of Landowners, WWF in Namibia and WWF South Africa.